Category Archive

Loving these interwebz is part of my job. Literally. As the web librarian, I’m the one looking for new ways to communicate, disseminate information, reach out, make connections. If I participate in less than 50 conversations a day I feel lazy.

Most of the time, it’s a great place, this giant bubble of networks and people and their ideas and their expertise. But then it can be a giant web of fucking networks and people and their ideas and the insecurities and their voices that should STAY in their head boiling up over and onto my screen. It’s too much.

Last week, it seemed like everyone had lost their damn minds. Professionally, I had to witness a bitch fight between two then three professional bloggers. Not fifteen year old girls each under the impression that she was going to the dance with Bobby Bigdick but professionals. It was ugly. And annoying.

Then one of my favorite blogs had a mini-I’m better than you and here’s who thinks so ‘no, you’re a bully!’, ‘no, you’re a bully.’ flame war.

Then there was another misunderstanding or something on a creative project I’ve been following and people weighed in with their thoughts on art. Ohhhh, god is there anything worse than watching people on the internet talk about their “feelings” on art?

John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

It wore me out. Made me want to go neo-luddite. Made me want to google ‘ways to make me temporarily blind.’

I sat back, had a cup of coffee and reflected on the issue.

See, there’s a been a few times, I’ve, uh, fuckwadded on the internet. Back when I gave a damn. The problem is that while you’re typing you have an audience of one – yourself. And if you’re really worked up, as we often are because –

then it’s just like talking to yourself. And if you’ve ever talked to yourself than you know just how big a fan yourself is of yourself. Am I making sense here? Anyway, you post and wait for everyone to praise and agree with you only they don’t…because they are too busy talking to themselves. So it’s this messed up public shower scene where everyone is talking to themselves and addressing a point they probably didn’t even read correctly in the first place – so eager were they to jump in the shower and belt some “Can’t Fight This Feeling” *GLEE REFERENCE – YAY!”

If you listen really closely you’ll hear the point of it all. Underneath the people waxing philosophical about what art should be or the nitwits crying ‘it’s so highschool’ or the comics nerds sad that people are actually reading the things you’ll hear the real panicked cry of the internet –

That thing that’s wrong today and the thing that will be wrong tomorrow, it just needs to be fixed. That’s the cost of global connection. To many problems and they have this illusion of being fixed if we can just convince the person at the other end of the screen to agree, to make us feel better, or our own voice to bang around in our own head offering up a solution.

But of course, there’s no fixing it, whatever it may be.

I know better than most just how much weird shit people are into. You walk into a library and wonder if even half of those books are being looked at and I can promise you they are. That weird book on “flint knapping” yeah, it’s popular. Books on carving ducks out of soap. Totally goes out.

So many different ideas and interests and sometimes we need to step away. Go to a real library or a real coffeshop and have your conversation about art. You may miss some of the few brilliant blogs or posts you’ll get on the internet but I promise you’ll hear another voice besides your own.

Then log back on because I totally just found out that Rick Twambley is Mr. Gay Hong Kong and that is why the internet is my best friend. And I need lots of people to talk to about that.

So, have you encountered any internet fatigue? or just overall sick of people feeling?

I missed therapy Monday. I’m sorry. I was busy chasing after the boys and they don’t understand sitting still, shutting up and letting me blarg all over the internet. Though, Fox has been known to say, “Mommy’s checking her farm.” But this isn’t about my former addiction to Farmtown. I got therapy for that.

I need some serious therapy to get over the travesty that befell me this Valentine’s. Drama. Christmas kicks off seasonal candy, uh, season. Some people claim Halloween has seasonal candy but that’s some bullshit. Halloween candy is just regular candy dressed up as seasonal candy. The true meaning of seasonal candy is to offer a confection that’s not available any other time of year. The major celebration is, of course, Easter. Sweet sweet seasonal Easter….mmm.

But Valentine’s isn’t too shabby either thanks to the candy heart. Witty and crunchy and some say chalky I say yummy. The white ones are the best, then yellow, then purple, then green, then orange and finally pink. These hearts are the only thing that keep me from stabbing a bitch. Red and pink irritate me and of course all the stores look like someone walked in a barfed pink/red sparkles all over everything. So then I have to try and not look but that’s impossible. Then I try and hold my breath because, while I think sparkles are nice, I’m slightly paranoid about inhaling them. Then I get home and my baby is sparkle covered which – pretty! but also, – ugh, now I have to commit to a bath.

Anyway, moving past this, I can always count on good old Sweethearts. Until, this year.

God. damn. you. sweet. heart. i will rip your faces off and feed them to Punxsutawney Phil.

They changed the recipe. Not the packaging *UPDATE: Candyblog has a full review and I guess they did change the packaging but I didn’t notice*– so you think you’re getting the usual hearty splendor and then ‘pppth, ew gross! what the what is this?’ Here’s where I actually threw the bag down and screamed “are you kidding me?”

I have anger issues – we covered that right?

The new recipe is fruity. As in, the fucking hearts taste like fruit. Bleeeech. And they aren’t crunchy, kind of powdery chewy. Bleeeeeeech. AND they added blue. BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHHH

Blue is not a flavor. It’s a gender identifying color. Pink manages to be both thanks to pepto bismol. Pepto started a pink flavor revolution. I’m fine with that because, before Sweethearts went and lost their minds, I really like that pink peptoish flavor. Also, starberry pink starbursts are good too. Blue has not enjoyed such a revolution and should not be included in my seasonal candy line up.

I cried. Sat on the floor and sobbed and fed my dog gross new Sweethearts hoping he would have some kind of horrible but not deadly reaction so I could sue them and make them return to the original flavor.

Here’s what Necco has to say about the situation:

New Sayings & Colors
For the first time in 145 years, Sweethearts® discarded all its previous phrases and asked the American public to tell us how they express their love. The 2010 Sweethearts® are featured in bright and bolder new colors.

Asking the American public to express themselves is about the worst fucking idea you can have. Fucking Necco. You know what you get when you ask an American? No Fat Chicks. Hope you like your new shit slogans, losers.

New Flavors & Texture
All new flavors for 2010 Sweethearts® include Strawberry, Green Apple, Lemon, Grape, Orange and Blue Raspberry. The new Sweethearts® have been re-formulated to be softer and more fun to eat.

Lemon! They replaced yums bananas with lemon? They are not at all more fun to eat. That is false.

Sometimes, I think the universe is trying to communicate with me. Signs and all that, or like, ok this one time? When we lived in that little house on 16th the phone rang and I was all, ‘ugh phone why are you on me with the ringing?’ because I don’t like answering phones. But this day I felt compelled to pick it up. I did and immediately this crazy bitch starts freaking out on me with this real urgent sounding message…in Chinese.

I know! Madness. So I was like, ‘umm, sorry wrong number’ but she wouldn’t calm down and I just hung up. This happened two more times over the week. Each time I was the one that answered the phone, even when Danny was home, and people, I do not answer phones. If you’ve ever tried to call me you know this. The only rational conclusion was that the universe was trying to tell me something urgent. Only the universe? Speaks fucking Chinese!

I’m not a prude or anything but… It offends my sensibilities. It does. And it’s not like I can look away, or change the channel or put the book down. I can drive into oncoming traffic but short of that? What?

Here’s my list of why I hate them:

They are just gross. They are vieny and wrinkly and old manish. If I had a testicle mold i would make sure it was like the superman of balls – not some true to life dangly mess.

My english major brain can’t wrap my mind around them. What am I supposed to think of these nutz? Is it literal? Like I’m to assume that along with its nuts your truck has some kind of a heart and functioning kidneys? Why? I tend to think this cause the nuts are so real looking… Or maybe a metaphor – for how much of a bad ass you and/or your truck is? This makes sense I suppose, especially for the tendency to associate balls with brawn or something. Or maybe it’s just some kind of analogy? I don’t know!!

It makes me wonder about the Truck Nutz counterpart. Can you imagine trucks driving around with Truck Labiaz? I don’t want to have to wonder about this!

Look, you’re driving a giant, unnecessary truck. So, I already know you’re a dick; there’s no need to add a set of silver testes to it. That’s just redundant.

Wow, I’m truly surprised at the number of grown women who are obsessed with Teen Mom. And, hey, I’m not knocking that because I too have become besties with Farrah and her Farrah hair. I too want to both kill and sleep with Ryan. I too long for bad ass Amber to actually graduate from highschool. Freaking highschool people, that’s both sad and fascinating.

Warning: this post is not going to include balls – instead I’ve decided to go serious nuts on yo face. If you don’t like it, well, I don’t know – I don’t want you to leave so maybe I’ll have a little sumin sumin for you at the end. But, not balls, I’m sick of those.

I stayed up really late last night to catch the Dr. Drew – eeee! he calls people on twitter, tweeples! – finale. Dr. Drew, such an enigma. On the one hand – thoughtful therapist. On the other hand – fame whore.

Let me say up front that I fully support the right of women, even teenage women, to make informed decisions about their bodies, their pregnancies, their lives. Whether that be abortion, adoption or “keeping it” which always sounds to me like some kind of unfortunate pinanta prize. Like, ‘Oh suck. A Bit-Oh-Honey, oh well, I’m keeping it.’ Anyway, I also fully support giving women the ‘informed’ part of that statement. More education, more family involvement, more… I don’t know what. It just seems to me that we are leaving our girls out to flail along in a world that is charmed and repulsed by them. Is it a “girl” thing? That, since they are women, they were more disposable in the first place. I wonder if boys were able to conceive if we would see the kind of call to action that we see against school violence. As a nation we seemed so concerned about keeping our young people from killing each other or off drugs (and all worthy things, yes but generally male dominated) and yet openly mock pregnant students.

Tangent – sorry. Back on track.

So, MTV puts these girls on television and, generally, I think that’s a good thing. Because I’m all for giving teens their voice though I imagine that much of their pain and joy has been exploited. That’s the nature of reality TV. I’m sure they prodded these girls into emotional moments that maybe wouldn’t have happened organically. Not saying the emotions are real but just…made for tv you know?

What I find so compelling is how the girls handle themselves. There’s this completely false notion that when a teenager has a baby they “grow up fast”. But that’s bullshit. You don’t biologically suddenly develop ten years just because you had a baby. Culturally, these girls are caught in a paradigm. Did I use that word correctly? Who cares, you know what I mean, right? Of course, you do. Paradigm. Shunned by their peers for suddenly having to ‘grow up’ and shunned by adults for being ‘stupid enough to get pregnant’ they exist lonely. The one thing all three girls who kept their bit-oh-honeys had in common was their pretty intense isolation. Which every new mother feels to some extent but god, I can’t imagine that combined with watching your future fall apart.

Then there’s the men. I think this show highlighted more than ever society’s willingness to let young fathers walk away. No one was yelling at Ryan to shape up yet plenty of ‘take care of your baby’ guilt was heaped on Maci. WTF society? QUIT PISSING ME OFF.

Finally, of course, there’s stebsiblings turned lovers (like a manga!) Catelynn and Tyler – who, according to every statistic I’ve ever seen, should not have chosen adoption, should not have stayed together, should not be able to talk about their choice and experience with the depth and maturity that they do. They surprised us didn’t they? I don’t know about you but I sobbed giant snot tears for them during the finale. Yet, they are so secure in their choice and happy yet damn, sad. Sad sad sad. Happy, then more sad.

I want to laugh at these girls but I can’t. Because they are mothers. Like me. And not like me. I hope for the best for all of them and of course their babies. This is a rambling make no sense post – sorry, I’ll have my shit together tomorrow. maybe.

In closing, keep your chin up girls, it’s a fight, every day – even for those of us that do it “the right way”. But every right way girl I know had at least one moment of ‘ohh please don’t let me be pregnant’ or even ‘I’m pregnant but I’m going to the clinic’.

I’m about to get controversial. It was bound to happen sooner or later – but before I do I want to make this caveat:

I am generally a most accepting person. I mean, I’m all for all types: ugly people in brightly lit spaces – fine by me. Old ka-weens – you know I love em. Hey, I’ll even let Taylor Swift eat dinner with me…

but, um, men in my yoga class? No. Hell no. I mean, I guess the gay ones can stay but the rest of you hairy mofos have got to GO.

Look, it’s nothing personal. I generally like straight men. I’ve even been known to carry on conversations with ones that aren’t my husband and these conversations have lasted complete minutes without me losing my mind.

The thing is – ok, see, it’s biological. Men are not biologically designed for yoga. You just aren’t. It’s the reason men’s gymnastics looks like this

and women’s looks like this

In other words, YOU NEED TO GET YOUR JUNK OUT OF MY FACE!

The last thing I want when I’m trying to achieve my serenity now is some gnarly ball swinging around. And it’s not like I can look away, I mean, an exposed sac is like an eclipse – you know it’s going to make you go blind but you can’t help staring directly at it. Fuuuuuccck.

Perhaps some of the problem is the cloth selection and maybe that’s why the gays get it right. Because they understand the importance of looking cute and appropriately covered up.

Let me lay it out:

There are exceptions to the rules of course:

Exception 1: Exceeding hotness. If you’re completely gorgeous and toned… I’ll probably assume you’re gay. However, even if you turn out to be straight, I’ll still let you do some warrior next to me. Of course, if you stink of patchouli I’ll beat you with a hemp rope.

Exception 2: Older gentlemen. I want to hate your presence but I feel like perhaps you’ve been told by your doctor to be here. I respect the medical professionals. They know lots about lots. Just don’t put your mat down in my line of sight, kay?

Exception 3: You comment on how great my ass looks.

If you do not fall into one of these categories OR you do not figure out how to dress properly – take it to the elliptical machine or something. I don’t care, just get out.

I’m sure the next generation of iPadians will be able to take pictures, run flash, summon Jesus – but for now, they are like giant iTouches. And the iTouch (besides having a pornographic name – but then again all things are pornographic to me) is pretty lahame. See? What I did there? I emphasized how very very lame it is.

Also, I would like an iTouch please.

#shutthefuckuprightnow <—-see? what I did there? I interwebz humored and to save myself from the indignity that is surely coming out of your mouth I need to be able to say – yeah, but I posted that from an iPad. Then, you’ll be all like #ohmysweetlordyyouareneat

It’s just that I’m so susceptible to what the media tells me is cool. I believe them. It is cool. If I have a first generation iPad I will be cool. Instantly and totally.

The thing stopping me isn’t the price because, what ups credit. I’m an American and I love me some debt. It’s the data plan. I have to pay for the thing then pay to suck data out of the sky (or however it works, I don’t care so don’t send me emails explaining it, thanks.)? I don’t actually know why this bothers me so bad but it does. It puts it out of my reach and makes me indignant.

Danny has a good explanation of why this should make us all mad but it’s long and involved and thoughtout so… just trust me.

I’m hoping that I can make a cardboard iPad knock off and no one will notice. I’ll be all like, ‘yeah I have one – it’s just sleeping right now.’

Of course, I’ll buy into the data plan if the iPad starts coming in pink.

Did you know that it’s going to snow? Yeah. It is. Tomorrow and maybe Friday and maybe we’ll all lose power and be buried underneath all the snow drifts. Of fluffy ice-sleet-snow. That’s going to fall tomorrow. Did I mention? Snow.

Now, some of you in other parts of the country are all, ‘wtf EVER Oklahoma. It’s just snow. In fact, we deal with it quite often.’ To which I say 1. Bully for you, now shut up. and 2. your snow and weather is probably normal where as our weather is seriously bat balls crazy.

Thankfully we’ve got some crackerjack weather men. There’s Mike Morgan* who hopes at least one person freezes to death outside the studio so he can get a live shot. There’s Gary England** who’s losing it. Seriously. He makes no sense anymore. And the guy from Fox who broke his finger drunk at a party*** (they don’t even deny this). Local Fox25 is awesome – not to be confused with national Fox News which makes me want to chew glass and put my eye out with a raptor claw.

First of all, where is Mike Morgan? Huh? I DEMAND MORGAN! Second of all, that’s great that Colorado is going to get “dumped on”, really fascinating stuff and has so much bearing on what I’m worried about. Third of all, hold me! Fourth of all, nice cheesy snowman graphic and the prediction that “some roads will close”.

Since weatherlove is yet another thing Danny and I don’t exactly share I wasn’t paying too much attention when he told me how this system works. But I heard the words El Nino. El Nino is a weather something or other that basically exists to screw with my life. I will write Mike Morgan and ask him to freak out about it on air. Or I would if he had a facebook like the rest of the civilized world.

Really, this is just a post I wanted to put up to bitch about Mike Morgan.

So, there I was, starting to do my weekly Eddie Furlong google when I came across this. Basically, a New York Times fashion writer put up one picture of the GORGEOUS WANT TO BE HER WANT TO DECORATE MY WALLS WITH HER BODY Christina Hendricks and it was distorted. They later replaced the photo with the original. Here they both are.

Now personally, I think both look pretty stunning. The one on the left (your left, not the computer’s) is clearly a bit stretched. The writer, Cathy Horyn (who neglects to include a picture), claims it was an error and since replaced it. So whatever, scandal! and, lying bitch!

What really bothers me is the straight cattiness of the whole thing. Look, I get that fashion is a part of the whole awards season. I love it. It’s the only part I watch and I’ve totally been known to let a “wtf? Is she wearing a dead animal snuggie?” fly.

Still, I resist commenting on the actresses actual bodies. You want to know why? Because they all rock. I repeat, they all rock. These women are hot. From Meryl Streep, to Mo’Nique, to the bombshell that is Christina Hendricks.

The other thing that got me was addressing the size issue and then putting a picture up. Really writer? You couldn’t put up a picture of the other thousand women you thought looked good? You had to pick the girl you were calling fat? Nice.

So let’s just assume that in some place other than the New York Times office people actually thought that Christian Hendricks was too fat and don’t “put a big girl in a big dress” applied. I would still call “shenagins” on that. Absolutely put big girls in big dresses. Own it! Big dresses are made to be sashayed and it’s soooo not about your size that pulls it off. It’s about your attitude.

Ok, so, I understand wearing a huge camouflage coat on the morning commute. After all, you are occasionally in the words where a colorblind deer might spot you. And of course, I get why you’re drinking Nati Lite this early – I mean, it’s beer or therapy am I right?

Hey, I even appreciate why you stick your hillbilly cousin in the bed where he could fly into the ditch given the slightest bump. That’s just natural selection.

I like the nightlife, baby.

But god why why why do you have to drive a giant, hulking monstrosity? Is there not smaller truck that can cart you, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your kill and your afore mentioned idiot cousin? You have to drive a tank? And don’t even get me started on your insane side mirrors. Why do they have to have an extra ten feet sticking out from your car? Do you have a need to see 50 cars behind you but miss me, the person who’s trying to pass you without getting sucked into your wind vortex?

This shit is unacceptable. Un. acceptable.*

It gives me the road rage. What about you? Who or what on the road makes you wish for a set of police spikes? And, more importantly, how do you cope? Do I even have to tell you I like to flip them off? Only my husband insists this is dangerous so I’ve been trying to keep it under control.

*I have a kind of love/hate relationship with larger vehicles (exceptions being giant trucks and Hummers – those are just obscene). On the one hand I really like the small, hybrid cars (trendy!) because they are good for the environment (whatever) and they come in a bunch of cute pastel colors (like Easter!). On the other hand, lots of yuppies still drive SUVs and they look cool driving on the backdrop of the ocean or the mountains so…